With pharmaceuticals representing such an important part of the nation’s economy and the health care sector, competition in the pharmaceutical industry is crucial to provide the best quality drugs for the lowest possible price. Antitrust enforcement plays a key role in ensuring competition in this industry. The past decade has featured numerous high-profile decisions, including that of the Supreme Court in FTC v. Actavis, that have fundamentally influenced the advice that practitioners give to their pharmaceutical clients.
Written for the antitrust and pharmaceutical communities, the Pharmaceutical Industry Antitrust Handbook, Second Edition is intended to provide a comprehensive and objective source about the most important antitrust issues faced by the pharmaceutical industry today. The Handbook provides an overview of the pharmaceutical industry, including the market participants, FDA regulatory structure, and background on private litigation and government enforcement. It then addresses the substantive antitrust issues presented by mergers and acquisition, joint ventures, various forms of potentially anticompetitive conduct, and distribution. Finally, it discusses the kinds of economic data that are integral to antitrust analysis for this industry.